Looks like it’s Winter Moulting time around here.
Have you ever heard of anything so daft, just when it’s bitterly cold? Arctic foxes and stoats must moult in Autumn to acquire their warm white winter camouflage. But sheep, and Attila the hen, the two practicing groups around here, are both white already. Beats me.
Attila has lost all her tail feathers, giving her a sawn-off look. She also developed lar
ge, indecently balding areas around the parson’s nose. This explains why I still can’t find any eggs (birds don’t lay whilst moulting; all their energies go into new feather growth) and also why Attila abandoned the coop – lacking enough pinion-power to flutter up to her perch.
Re-growing what she has lost, Attila currently has a rattling plumage full of stiff, stubby, lightly-feathered quills, as though she’s deciding whether to keep on being a hen or work on becoming a porcupine.
Meanwhile Utensil, having moulted just a handful of glossy red breast-feathers, has alsoquit laying in sympathy.
The sheep are equally baffling. The hedges and brambles are fle
cked everywhere with dirty wool scraps, the sheep trailing swags of fleece behind them. Like Attila, they seem to be moulting mainly from the rear. The result is quite obscene, their naked exposed flanks looking as neatly done as if they’ve been Brazilian waxed.
There are, I know, new strains of sheep bred to moult, wool being of so little value now that it’s not worth the cost of shearing. Easier, I suppose, than breeding acrylic sheep – the only real market these days being the carpet trade. A nearby farmer with a flock of these moulting sheep has notices on his gate explaining about them – defence against well-meaning locals who keep reporting the sorry state of his apparently disintegrating animals to the RSPCA.
But those sheep moulted each spring, and these are suddenly doing it in winter.
I feel I ought to collect the wool and do something with it, but the idea of all that carding, spinning, weaving, and all the equipment I’d need just to make a pair of itchy mittens tires me out just thinking about it.
Like the sheep, I’d rather be cold.
Have you ever heard of anything so daft, just when it’s bitterly cold? Arctic foxes and stoats must moult in Autumn to acquire their warm white winter camouflage. But sheep, and Attila the hen, the two practicing groups around here, are both white already. Beats me.
Attila has lost all her tail feathers, giving her a sawn-off look. She also developed lar
ge, indecently balding areas around the parson’s nose. This explains why I still can’t find any eggs (birds don’t lay whilst moulting; all their energies go into new feather growth) and also why Attila abandoned the coop – lacking enough pinion-power to flutter up to her perch. Re-growing what she has lost, Attila currently has a rattling plumage full of stiff, stubby, lightly-feathered quills, as though she’s deciding whether to keep on being a hen or work on becoming a porcupine.
Meanwhile Utensil, having moulted just a handful of glossy red breast-feathers, has alsoquit laying in sympathy.
The sheep are equally baffling. The hedges and brambles are fle
cked everywhere with dirty wool scraps, the sheep trailing swags of fleece behind them. Like Attila, they seem to be moulting mainly from the rear. The result is quite obscene, their naked exposed flanks looking as neatly done as if they’ve been Brazilian waxed.There are, I know, new strains of sheep bred to moult, wool being of so little value now that it’s not worth the cost of shearing. Easier, I suppose, than breeding acrylic sheep – the only real market these days being the carpet trade. A nearby farmer with a flock of these moulting sheep has notices on his gate explaining about them – defence against well-meaning locals who keep reporting the sorry state of his apparently disintegrating animals to the RSPCA.
But those sheep moulted each spring, and these are suddenly doing it in winter.
I feel I ought to collect the wool and do something with it, but the idea of all that carding, spinning, weaving, and all the equipment I’d need just to make a pair of itchy mittens tires me out just thinking about it.
Like the sheep, I’d rather be cold.
Have you read my comments on your Good King W blog? If you trying to hike your country diary blogs around mags and newspapers doesn't work...or is too much like a lot of hard work with little gain...have you thought about combining your blogs into a narrative (ie. country gentlewoman, her life, her blogs/diary etc etc) and producing a work of fiction/faction?
ReplyDeleteHave you explored our very own (now famous) local publisher's site Tindall Street Press?
http://www.tindalstreet.co.uk
Sally
ps - re BBC Sounds - you obviously have a very talented family - and ex family!